Weak Ties Protect Your Health
This article by The Washington Post discusses the importance of weak ties when it comes to health. Social lives consist of what psychologists call both “weak ties” and “strong ties.” A strong tie is a spouse, parent, sibling, best friend, coach, or colleague. It is known that close relationships with family and friends are important for our health and happiness. On the other hand, a weak tie consists of the people who make up our broader social networks, for example, Facebook friends, barista, waitress, etc. Surprisingly, researchers have found, these weak ties can boost physical and psychological health and buffer against stress and loneliness.
Research suggests that having a diverse network of strong and weak ties is physically and psychologically protective. People who have a broad range of relationships tend to be healthier and happier. We cannot always be with our strong ties all the time and relying on them too much can be harmful. Instead, minimal interactions with a broad range of people make us feel good like we are connected to people. A sense of community can make us gain trust and feel like we belong. Wide networks have so many benefits. They can keep us calm and encourage positive health behaviors. Weak ties are crucial for health as well as many any other things such as finding a career.
I chose this article because it connects to what we have been learning in class about tie strength in chapter 3. We first learned about local bridges which are ties between two nodes if they have no common friends, in other words, removing the connection would increase the distance between the two nodes. We discussed that local bridges are crucial in the connectivity of a graph. Then we learned about two different tie strengths, “strong ties” and “weak ties” which connect local bridges to acquaintances. We also discussed that weak ties are important in accessing information between people especially in the example of finding a job.